Fetches and renders RBML from a given ref source – either a ref string "handle" you've created using RBML.setRefHandle or a URL that serves RBML. You can use this ref to publish identical RBML to a large number of user profiles and subsequently update those profiles, without having to republish RBML on behalf of each user (that is, using profile.setRBML for each user).
| required | url | string | The URL from which to fetch the RBML. caches the content retrieved from that URL until you call RBML.refreshRefUrl. You must specify either url or handle, but not both. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| handle | string | The string previously set by RBML.setRefHandle that identifies the RBML. You must specify either url or handle, but not both. |
Performance
If you have to update a large number of refs, you want to be using handle refs, since you can do it with a single push, rather than URL refs, which will hammer your server on the callback. You may also want to stream out your updates in parallel, which can be easily accomplished by using curl_multi instead of curl in the PHP5 rest client.
Cache Expiration
"You only need to publish on update. We'll keep it otherwise."
So the cache never expires and you will not need to periodically update your application cache. will keep the cache indefinitely. However, developers should not rely on the cache always keeping their data – i.e. it is not safe to assume that once data has been cached (in the case of a URL ref), it can be deleted from your server.
Nested Refs
The contents of a ref handle can contain RBML, including other <rb:ref> tags.
Warning: An infinite nesting can be created by creating two ref handles that refer to each other. Do not do this.
RBML Anomalies in Refs
Some RBML tags do not currently appear to operate as expected when nested inside a ref handle. These include: <rb:if-is-own-profile>.